kitchen hut

I’ve been taking to writing in the kitchen these past few days. After so many hours spent alone, cooped up in my room I realize there is a void leftover. The craving for contact and interaction grows larger than what I can satiate by bouncing back and forth between my friends’ Facebook pages. I think this craving, or rather my growing understanding of the importance of it, has been guiding my mind and consequently my expression during our little conversations on this here binary clipboard.

This morning, like others this week, finds me sitting atop two pillows on our kitchen couch surrounded by lazy kitties and breathing in the aroma of blackberry pancakes being cooked by my wonderful roommate. Yeah, I’m too short to reach our table comfortably while writing… shut up. Even though I’m not working as fast as I do when I’m alone and staring constantly, I realize that I feel really damn good! I can even make jokes in the middle of a somewhat serious topic. I’m happy and aware and content which usually does not equate the recipe for great pieces of work, but who gives a shit about the relativity of greatness when surrounded by happiness.

Slowly but surely, I’m able to pour into this screen that which normally I must be alone to pull out. I write for them, because of them, why can’t I write with them around?

The more I think about art and its necessity for solitude, the more that idea begins to fall apart. Slowly, mainly because of those that I now call lovers and friends, I have grown my understanding of expression to be that which necessitates not solitude but rather a profound and very fundamental connection to others. Why else do we feel the need to express that which boils inside all of us other than to try and let the rest bearing the burdens know that they are nowhere near alone on this ride?

The pancakes now tucked happily into my stomach, I watch as Chloe floats effortlessly inside our beautiful kitchen. The cats are cuddled up next to each other on a penetrating strip of sunlight that’s filling up small sections of the couch with heat… something thoroughly lacking here at the hut during winter time. Another roommate stumbles from the door next to our kitchen, smiles, he chuckles, we chuckle and he continues off towards the bathroom with towel in hand in only a pair of boxers.

I sit, bang out a few sentences at a time, but more importantly I take in what is around me without any fear of the feelings that are growing ever stronger inside these seconds where I get to witness life. This is why my family is so important; they are the legs I stand on. The stronger they make me, the more I get to pile onto this life.

Mike returns from his shower and joins us at the table. More pancakes are piled, more coffee is made. Each time we sit, I close the lid of this thing and put it on the seat next to me. There is nothing ruder than ignoring the connections directly in front of you because of something much farther away.

The cats haven’t moved much but us humans have now shared our feelings of that first morning haze, cooked beside one another, shared coffee, ate together and are now finishing up our wonderful breakfast with a light conversation knowing soon we must disembark from this kitchen into the world outside where we must distance ourselves for safety’s sake from those who in other circumstances would be near us on some morning much like today’s.